LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 63: INFINITE

I have a surprise at the end, check the author's note 😉

Also, you probably noticed in the header just above that WE NOW HAVE A LOGO FOR THE REBELS!!! Thank you to the sweet and talented @yourwriterfriend 🤩😍❤😘 Tell me what you think of it in the comments! 

Rows and rows of shelves, boxes like drawers again and again, all the same, and they are all spread out before Anastasia's eyes. No matter where she looks, there are only more and more, and it means one thing: an enormous amount of work.

She has hoped it would be wrapped up in less than three days with some determination and elbow grease. But in fact, even with a lot of effort, three days will barely be enough.

"This is..."

She turns up the volume of her headphones until the sound of her old law lessons is drowning out Nathaniel's smooth voice, and even overpowering everything around. When she can't stand to hear those unfair rules anymore, it shows how desperate she is.

It will indeed be an insurmountable task; avoiding the penetrating gaze following all her movements is an insurmountable task, and it requires her more energy than the three-day cleaning of this gigantic room will ever. She has to fight against her whole being and the attraction pulling her to Nathaniel as she pushes her cart farther into the room.

Though she is already thankful that he isn't trying to get close to her again. She is very well aware that he is trying to talk to her, yet whatever he has to say, she doesn't want to hear it. That's why she is ignoring him, and she is surprised, and maybe a little disappointed, that he doesn't even look annoyed.

She is mostly doing this to protect herself, but a little part of her also wants to get back at him with the same treatment he has offered her the other day: being a stranger. Yet he doesn't lose his patience, nor force her to listen. He just tries talking every time she throws a glance in his direction – which is not a lot, since she is avoiding him – and every time she doesn't let him, there is only a little bit more defeat falling on his features. It is affecting her more than she wishes, and actually, even from the other side of the room, her skin is prickling.

It is like the wideness is intensifying the sensations because except for the shelves from floor to ceiling, covering the walls and forming seven alleys, the rest is empty, not even a chair or a table scattered somewhere. Besides, the eerie quietness makes it impossible to forget that they are sheltered from the rest of the world. No one is supposed to enter this room. Nathaniel has typed many codes and used many keys to unlock the door, the three doors actually.

Since the moment she has been 'requested' for this task, she has been conscious of this detail, which is imprinting deeper with each second they are alone together, and before it can find its way to her heart, she steps into the second alley, taking some distance. But even as Nathaniel doesn't follow her more than with his gaze, it is still pulling at all her flustered nerve endings.

It is like her pendant. If she gets too close to him, her head is spinning, yet when she is far, she gets lost, and through it all, the attraction is always there.

It is an immense effort for her to focus on her work, and she grips the crumpled paper of instructions like her point of reference, reminding her why she is here: to do her work, like the cleaning lady she is.

However, the rags and detergents in her cart are forgotten the second she lifts her gaze again, and this time, it isn't a pair of tenebrous eyes she is crossing. Even if she can still sense the goosebumps he is arising on her skin, something else is springing, something faint like a dormant power, something in the depths of her guts, something drawing her to the metallic drawers in front of her, and once more she finds herself hypnotized in front of a simple object.